(1.5.18) Slate: There Is No Such Thing as “the” Blockchain

How do you quadruple your stock price without lifting a finger? In December 2017, the Long Island Ice Tea Corp. found an answer: Add the word blockchain to your company name. The beverage business made this move before doing much to justify its new branding as Long Blockchain Corp. Still, investors rewarded the company: Its stock rose 432 percent. That’s because blockchain, a piece of bitcoin’s technological plumbing, has recently become the buzzword of all buzzwords in the business world.